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Six years ago, the Pokemon Go app was updated to let users do 'field research' and scan statues and things. Niantic used photos and such to build 3D models of environments and mapped those into navigable fields for delivery robots.
Niantic thanks Pokemon Go players for their free contributions to Niantic's corporate bottom line. But no money will be forthcoming unless you're a stockholder.
From the article:
"This week, Niantic Spatial, part of the team behind Pokémon Go, announced a partnership with Coco Robotics, a company that makes short-distance delivery robots for food and groceries. Soon, those robot couriers will scoot around sidewalks using Niantic’s Visual Positioning System (VPS)—a navigation tool that can reportedly pinpoint location down to a few centimeters just by looking at nearby buildings and landmarks. Niantic trained that VPS model on more than 30 billion images captured by Pokémon Go users, and claims it will help robots operate in areas where GPS falls short."
Once again, if you're not paying for the product, then YOU are the thing being sold. The problem is, if you're a paying customer, you're still getting your data harvested and re-sold. You can't win, and you can't quit the game.
https://www.popsci.com/technology/pokemon-go-delivery-robots-crowdsourcing/
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/03/16/2136229/pokemon-go-players-unknowingly-trained-delivery-robots-with-30-billion-images
Niantic thanks Pokemon Go players for their free contributions to Niantic's corporate bottom line. But no money will be forthcoming unless you're a stockholder.
From the article:
"This week, Niantic Spatial, part of the team behind Pokémon Go, announced a partnership with Coco Robotics, a company that makes short-distance delivery robots for food and groceries. Soon, those robot couriers will scoot around sidewalks using Niantic’s Visual Positioning System (VPS)—a navigation tool that can reportedly pinpoint location down to a few centimeters just by looking at nearby buildings and landmarks. Niantic trained that VPS model on more than 30 billion images captured by Pokémon Go users, and claims it will help robots operate in areas where GPS falls short."
Once again, if you're not paying for the product, then YOU are the thing being sold. The problem is, if you're a paying customer, you're still getting your data harvested and re-sold. You can't win, and you can't quit the game.
https://www.popsci.com/technology/pokemon-go-delivery-robots-crowdsourcing/
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/03/16/2136229/pokemon-go-players-unknowingly-trained-delivery-robots-with-30-billion-images
